Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Catholic Church in America has bred her own destroyers, graduating from doctrinally corrupt catechetical programs, schools and colleges two generations of pro-abortion politicians. Barack Obama, in his effortless Alinskyite style, has exploited this phenomenon to the hilt, seeking out Catholics such as Joe Biden and Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his agents of destruction.

The controversy this week at Notre Dame is one more snapshot of this self-implosion. Here we have the American bishops' most prominent university planning to confer an honorary degree upon Obama even as he accelerates the destruction of its moral teachings.

Were Saul Alinsky alive today, he would have to smile at the ease of it all. Obama can not only thwart the Church at every crucial turn and still retain the Catholic vote; he can even expect over the next few years prizes and pats on the back from Catholic colleges for doing so.

Jesuit Georgetown University is no doubt itching to honor him too; its professors ranked seventh among all university faculties in donations to Obama during the campaign, reported the Chronicle of Higher Education.

At the end of the year 1594 French King Henry IV(A Protestant Huguenot, later reconciled with the Church) was reminded that there were other weapons in the armory of Spain and Rome besides those of open warfare.

It was believed that more than once already assassins had aimed at his life. On November 27, while the King was at Amiens, a young man called Jean Chastel, only eighteen years of age, attempted to stab the King as he was entering the apartments of his mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrees.

Henry stooped just as the blow was delivered. It struck him therefore not on the throat, as had been intended, but on the lip and gum. The wound was quite a trivial one, but it had some important consequences.

Jean Chastel had, it turned out, been a pupil of the Jesuits, and maintained upon his trial that he had been encouraged in his attempt by the theories of his Jesuit teachers. Consequently, after he had been put to death with the most shocking tortures, the blow fell upon the whole order.

Their constant hostility to the King needed no proof. They were expelled from France by order of the Parliament of Paris, and the decree of Paris was followed by similar orders from the Parliaments of Rouen and Grenoble. But these decrees were ineffective. The Parliaments of Aix, Rennes and Bordeaux refused to follow the example of Paris, and the Jesuits found therefore a refuge within their jurisdiction.

Student Organizers in Search of New Venue After BC Administrators Abandon Academic Freedom

Chestnut Hill, MA -- After administrators at Boston College forced the cancellation late Friday afternoon of an academic lecture featuring Professor Bill Ayers, student organizers of the event have decided that the show will go on -- off-campus. Student groups and faculty at Boston College drew criticism from a right-wing talk radio show host on Friday after organizing a lecture featuring University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Bill Ayers.

The event, planned for Monday night, was canceled by administrators who cited concerns for the "safety, security, and well-being" of the Boston College community. Student organizers of the event, despite having worked with administrators weeks in advance, were disappointed by the event's last-minute cancellation Friday evening.

BC Senior Michael Madormo, one of the student organizers of the event and President of the Americans for Informed Democracy, BC chapter, said, "This event is in no way sanctioning Prof. Ayers' past actions or the actions of his former associates. The lecture is merely an opportunity to hear from one of the nation's preeminent scholars on issues of urban education reform. At a university, we have the responsibility to hear all voices even if we disagree with them. Above all, this is an issue of free speech and allowing the student body to hear a unique and respected academic viewpoint."

Students have struggled with the administration's restricted interpretation of academic freedom in the past, prompting outcries from the BC community. Administrators' cancellation of academic events thought to be against the Jesuit, Catholic doctrine led to protests from the GLBTQ community in 2005, the African-American Hispanic Asian Native American (AHANA) community in 2006, and a referendum earlier this year condemning the lack of dialogue around issues of sexual health.

BC Senior Melissa Roberts, another organizer of the event and a member of the College Democrats said, "BC is setting a dangerous precedent by canceling this event. In the past, administrators have cancelled events that they see as being at odds with Jesuit, Catholic ideals. Now, a new precedent has been set which permits the cancellation of any event that is at odds with the ideals of BC's wealthy and largely conservative donors. A university should be a place where students can hear all ideas, not just popular or profitable ones."

Professor Ayers, a former member of the (A must watch video link to help you understand how despicable and loathsome Bill Ayers is)Weather Underground(AKA The Weather Men) and organizer of self described "acts of extreme vandalism" is now a respected academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ayers has written numerous books and delivered lectures about reforming urban education to develop the whole person, a concept similar to the Jesuit concept of "curapersonalis." In addition, Professor Ayers was awarded the Citizen of the Year Award in Chicago in 1997. In his talk, Professor Ayers will address urban education reform and civic engagement in the 21st century. Professor Ayers has spoken at many prestigious universities in the past, including Harvard, Yale, Georgetown Law School, Cornell, Columbia and Brown.

Father Costantino's official mission was to diversify programming, form a board of directors, make capital improvements, expand youth programming and institute a training program for religious and lay people.

But Father Costantino, 47, has gone further. Beyond pouring $750,000 from benefactors and donations into sprucing up the mansion, from fixing the slate roof to upgrading the electrical service and redoing the marble floors and the chapel pews, he gave the Catholic retreat house a New Age twist.

''We have added things like yoga, Reiki, massage and reflexology,'' he said, showing off the new gym, complete with sauna and Jacuzzi, on the lounge level. An outside pool dates to the 1920's, and there is a brook that many sit by and meditate. To help participants in their search for tranquillity, a labyrinth was added three years ago. And while the retreat house has offered Zen meditation sessions for several years, the former billiards room was recently converted into a zendo.

The United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops have recently released a ruling on Reiki (here)

An excerpt of that ruling

Reiki therapy finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief. For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support (or even plausibility) is generally not prudent. In terms of caring for one's spiritual health, there are important dangers.

To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science.

Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition

concluding words to the Fathers of the 35th General Congregation on February 21, 2008:

"As my Predecessors have said to you on various occasions, the Church needs you, relies on you and continues to turn to you with trust, particularly to reach those physical and spiritual places which others do not reach or have difficulty in reaching.

"Wherever in the Church, even in the most difficult and extreme fields, at the crossroads of ideologies, in the social trenches, there has been and there is confrontation between the burning exigencies of man and the perennial message of the Gospel, here also there have been, and there are, Jesuits"

(Address to the 32nd General Congregation of the Jesuits, 3 December 1974; ORE, 12 December, n. 2, p. 4.)."

Journalists and news anchors have taken on a star-like quality in the minds of many viewers. At times the person reading the news is more important than the news itself. In this climate of fifteen minutes of fame, the figure of the official spokesperson—whether for presidents or international corporations—can capture the imagination of the public. This was the case with Dr. Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who led the Vatican press office for over 22 years. During the illness and death of John Paul II, his became a household name, his face synonymous with the Vatican. A serious man, he found himself in a glaring media spotlight.

The same has happened to his successor, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, but the Italian Jesuit’s reserve and simple manner has so far managed to keep the onslaught of media attention at bay and the emphasis firmly on his work: to deliver the pope’s words to the world.

In July 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Lombardi director of the Holy See Press Office. The appointment—made when the pope was on vacation—took many by surprise for a number of reasons. First, few had expected it; Navarro-Valls had served John Paul II for his entire pontificate. Also, many were taken aback by the appointment of a religious to a post regarded as the prerogative of a layperson.

The assumption was that only a non-cleric would be capable of translating the complex theological and doctrinal issues of the Church into lay terms. Last, Lombardi already had a job, actually two: he headed Vatican Radio and also the Vatican Television Center. Was all Vatican media going to be amalgamated into one organization headed by Lombardi? How would he reconcile the demands of the three jobs?

Almost a year into his new job, the 64-year-old Italian Jesuit maintains, “It’s all in a day’s work.” That was his simple reply when I put those questions to him one evening in his office at Vatican Radio.

John Paul's most important Curial innovation was to jettison the tradition of the pope's spokesman being a Curial priest by installing the Spanish layman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, an accomplished journalist, as head of the Holy See Press Office.

It was often said that Dr Navarro-Valls (who liked to joke that his early professional experience as a psychiatrist had prepared him well for dealing with the Vatican press corps) brought the Holy See's press operation "into the 20th century". To which the proper response was, "Yes, the first half of the 20th century."

That was no mean accomplishment, given Curial resentments over a layman who was spokesman, confidant and private diplomatic agent of the pope. But Navarro-Valls's personal accomplishments were mistaken by many as a sign that the Curia had entered the world of 21st-century communications.

It hasn't, as the first day of the Lefebvrist crisis made painfully clear: Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, Navarro-Valls's successor, was sadly unprepared for the informal press briefing he gave the day the story broke, because he hadn't been brought into whatever deliberations there had been about lifting the Lefebvrist excommunications.

Thus the false impression was immediately created, and just as immediately hardened into "fact", that the Lefebvrist bishops had been restored to the full communion of the Church, which hadn't happened. That misimpression, the result of inept communications and bureaucratic blundering, intensified the outrage over Bishop Williamson's Holocaust denial.

Fr Lombardi, a Jesuit, presided over the mega-disaster of the Williamson affair. The Pope's decision to lift the SSPX excommunications was not his responsibility, but the Church's failure to anticipate the row and its grotesquely slow response to the worldwide row most certainly was.

Then he allowed a question about Aids, condoms and Africa to be asked aboard the papal plane, which the Pope handled with less than total assurance and clarity. Sorry to have to make that point, but the fact that the Vatican press office felt it necessary to tinker with his quotes afterwards is revealing, don't you think?

By the way, do have a proper read of Gillibrand's influential blog. There is an item about the Bishop of Leeds which is worth looking at. Chris has strong connections in Rome; I wonder if he has been in touch with them over the past few days.

Ayers' Association With Obama Sparked ControversyMarch 28, 2009BOSTON -- A 1960s radical whose relationship with President Barack Obama became an issue during the presidential campaign had his visit to Boston College abruptly canceled Friday night.

The Jesuit university withdrew two student groups’ invitation to former radical William Ayers to speak on campus Monday. “After meetings between administrators and students, the decision was made to rescind the invitation,”spokesman Jack Dunn said.

The school was unaware that Ayers had been invited to speak by the students until the controversy boiled on talk radio in Boston Friday.

Ayers was a founding member of the violent anti-war group the Weather Underground, which was blamed for a series of bombings that killed several people in the 1960s.

Their targets were police stations, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. Ayers was charged with riot and bombing conspiracy charges, but the case was eventually thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct.

Ayers figured in the 2008 presidential campaign as Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, criticized Obama for his association with the former radical. She accused Obama of "palling around" with a domestic terrorist.

During a debate last year, the president said that he knew Ayers "as a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and said they had served on a charitable board together. He also denounced Ayers' support for violence.

The student organizers of the event said they would try to reschedule his speech and hold it off-campus. “All of us who have put a lot of hard work into planning and defending this event are really disappointed because we had hoped this would be an open academic forum for someone who’s widely respected,”Melissa Roberts(Member of the BC College Democrats) told the newspaper. “We’re going to make sure this respected academic gets heard.”

Saints and martyrs, Mary and the pope will all be discussed at the spring sessions of Theology on Tap, which begins March 29.

This will be the third Theology on Tap series the diocese has put on. So far, the program has gone pretty well, said Kathryn Fairchild, one of the organizers, with an average of 15 to 30 people showing up for each session.RENEW Theology on Tap is a young adult ministry program that originated in Chicago. It is an international program for young adults, 18 to 40, single or married, and takes place at bars and restaurants. Each Theology on Tap session has a theology topic and a speaker, as well as a question and answer period, followed by time for fellowship. “[Theology on Tap] is one of the few things we offer,” Fairchild said. “I think there’s not a lot out there for that in between age.”

The spring series is based on topic suggestions from previous attendees, Fairchild said. Besides the first session, two more Theology on Tap opportunities will occur in April and May.

“A lot of people in our generation didn’t really receive full catechism or maybe at this point they’ve forgotten some of the stuff they may have learned a long time ago,” Fairchild said. “They just know we have these saints days, [but] what do they mean? They want to know more about these people.”

Mark Thomason will help young adults learn more about them March 29 at Minerva’s with his talk on “Modern Saints and Martyrs, what can we learn from them?” “A lot of the modern people dismiss religion as superstition,” said Thomason, diocesan director of catechesis, evangelization and RCIA. “Modern saints dispel that and prove that religion is still relevant today.”

Catholics today can also identify with the saints and still need them, he said. Modern saints are those who struggled through the post-industrial revolution. Humans live in a very different world now compared to the time of St. Francis of Assisi, Thomason said, which is one of the reasons many people ignore the saints.

There are still St. Francis’ in the world today, they just adapt to the era, he added. “I think it’s more and more important that we live the lives of the saints and utilize the saints,” he said. “We all have our little kids’ saints books, but we drop off there. [Saints] really are the best teachers.”

Thomason will mention some of the well known and not so well known saints, such as Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Miguel Pro, S.J., and others. “I think the big difference is the extraordinary courage of most of them,” Thomason said.

For example, Miguel Pro, S.J., had to sneak around Mexico to say Mass during the Mexican Revolution and to do so he had to wear disguises such as a clown and lawyer.

At the site blessing, the archbishop went on to say in his homily that the gathering in this “small but beautiful corner of God’s earth (was) not to destroy it but to rejoice in it”.“People can come here to learn more about God’s love for them and for all God’s beautiful creation, a small fraction of which people will be able to see simply by looking out the window of the chapel that will be built on this very spot,” the archbishop said.

“The chapel will open us up to the magnificence of God’s ocean and God’s islands, so that inspired by it all we will praise and worship God in prayer, especially in the celebration of God’s great act of thanksgiving, the Mass.”

Archbishop Bathersby petitioned that “Santa Teresa and St Joseph pray for the future of this powerhouse of spirituality, and may Mary the mother of Jesus pray for the work of the Jesuits who in the future will lead people here to her Son”.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It came as small consolation to Gonzaga, but North Carolina coaches and players said Friday night's performance was special even by their high standards.

"We played really, really well," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said after the 98-77 romp in the South Regional semifinal game. "I thought we beat a fantastic basketball team in Gonzaga that did not have their best day."

Asked if the Tar Heels' performance was a perfect 10, senior wing Danny Green said, "It was close, but I wouldn't say it was a 10. I'd say it was an eight.

"We still have some things we have to work on. We've got to play better because it is going to get tougher and tougher as we go on."

The 98 points allowed and 21-point margin of defeat were the worst for Gonzaga since a 108-87 loss at Virginia on Jan. 3, 2007. The Bulldogs rank among the national leaders in field-goal-percentage defense, but the Tar Heels shot 53 percent, including 58 percent on three-pointers.

"It's tough to stop a team of that caliber when they're shooting the ball like that," Gonzaga forward Austin Daye said.

The Jesuit Missionaries who had visited the area in the 1600s had made reference to these sites and had given the Christian name of "St. Joseph" to them. However, very little information about these sights came to light until Jones' examination of these sites in the 1870s.

According to Jones' amateur archaeological survey these native towns were built in a semi-circle with entrances fronting an open space of about one and half acres used as a public playground for sports, contests, feasts, tribal powwows, speaking forums and other gatherings.

Jones also found in his excavations many stone balls measuring one and a half inches, and two and a half inches in diameter. These balls were so well rounded that they approximated spheres. Exactly what game was played with them was not determined by Jones but he speculated that, if the game was lacrosse, then it explains the number of injuries and deaths reported by natives playing this game with such lethal stone balls.

Jones, on the site of to-day's city cemeteries, found tally sticks, which were lengths of flat bone incised crosswise with notches. Each one was possibly a count of big game or possible an "enemy killed" the amateur archaeologist speculated.

As has been reported in several accounts, early native people enjoyed, as did Europeans, various games of chance. He found, at these local sites, examples of counters made of deerhorn about two inches long, a half-inch wide, a quarter inch thick, nearly oval and rounded at the ends. Jones speculated that these items were tossed from a bowl and wagers made on how they fell.

Jones's exploration of these sites known as "St. Joseph" by the Jesuits revealed items that clearly displayed their inherent artistry and craftsmanship. He found well-shaped weapons and implement handles as well as shards of pottery with indented designs colored with wood dyes.

The most well-known Spaniard in Taiwan today is probably Fr Rabago. At 92, this Jesuit priest is famous all around Taipei for his infectious laugh and the warm care he seems eager to bestow on anyone who crosses his path.

Fr Rabago is also “Doctor Rabago”: he got a doctorate on medicine at a young age, specializing in the application of tomography to radiology of dorsal vertebrae. “when there were only six tomographs in the whole of Spain” he recalls. Today, he still goes running from one hospital to another, caring for his Jesuit brothers but also for many other friends.

As he once taught medical ethics at Taiwan National University from 1970 to 2000 and has also been chaplain of the association of Catholic nurses, he is almost always affectionately greeted by old acquaintances during these countless hospital visits.

---Family inheritanceFr Rabago does not correspond to the bellicose model of the Spaniards who had been conquering Americas and the Philippines (and back then, Taiwan as well) in former centuries. But this does not mean that his life has been peaceful and uneventful. As a matter of fact, his story reflects many of the events and tragedies experienced by Spain and other parts of the world during the 20th century.

He was born in 1917 in Galicia, an economically backward province that borders Portugal. His paternal grandfather was teaching Hebrew and sociology at a university, but was above all interested in the problem of rural poverty, trying to devise ways for the development of his beloved Galicia.

Among other books, he wrote an influential essay on “rural credit.” After his death, and in inheriting the land, his youngest son (Fr Rabago's father) did not hesitate to sell the whole lot to start a fishery, hoping that this would provide work for a population suffering from chronic unemployment. He married a young woman who came from a family whose background was less intellectual but who shared similar social concerns; Fr Rabago’s maternal grandfather had started a bank by inadvertence, he had such a reputation for probity that the peasants of the neighbourhood would confide their wealths to him, and he in turn, would pay them interests. Soon enough, a family bank was created.Similarly, Fr Rabago’s mother was active in a number of charitable causes, starting, among other projects, the construction of cheap habitation units, so as to enable poor people to become owners of their own house. She still found time to give birth to ten children, four of whom died at a young age. Andres Rabago was number seven, and his youngest sister (who also gave birth to ten children) is still alive.

“My mother was restless, always taking care of one business or another, preferably of the poorer people in the area or the employees of my father’s fishery. At the same time, she loved us so much. Her love was a selfless one. When I decided to enter the Jesuits and later on to go to China, she told me not to worry for my father and for her, but just to do what I felt I had to do…”

The family was deeply rooted in the Christian faith, coupled with vanguard social concerns. So, it was little wonder that, apart from Andres Rabago, one of his elder brothers became a doctor and later on the director of a hospital. As he had publicly lamented the state of hygiene in Spanish hospitals, he was urged by the Health Minister of that time to retract himself or be dismissed, to which he accepted without hesitation.

The youngest boy of the family became a Jesuit, like his brother (he would later on become a pioneer of distant learning in Spain.) But Spain during the first half of the 20th century was knowing a ceaseless political agitation, and the opposition between Right and Left was becoming more and more radical, with Catholics most often associating with the Right and Anticlericalism with the Left (though this was not the case in the Basque country, which was at the same time Republican and Catholic.)

The civil war started in 1936… One of the brothers of Fr Rabago died in battle, while he himself was also wounded in the army. This experience might have contributed to his choice in becoming a Jesuit after having gotten his medical diploma at the end of the Civil War. He admits that such a choice was not an easy one. Andres enters the Jesuit noviciate in 1940, in Salamanca. With this, a new chapter began…

Link (here) to Fathers full story with short video interview at E-Renlai Magazine

"Bishops all over the place are violating what would once have been considered episcopal etiquette," says political scientist, the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and expert on the polity (governing structure) of the Catholic Church. "You don't criticize each other in public or comment on what's happening in someone else's diocese."

That's broken down now, says Reese, because, "Many bishops believe they are being prophetic on the issues they think are important and these bishops think abortion is the pre-eminent issue of our time, like slavery and genocide were in the past. They are true believers and they are speaking out, even if, like Archbishop Burke, they have absolutely zero authority to tell someone else in the USA what they can do."

Archbishop Raymond Burke apologized for the misuse of his comments from an interview with Randall Terry regarding the actions of other United States bishops regarding Catholic politicians who support abortion. (here)

Friday, March 27, 2009

You can find Zags fans pretty much everywhere in Spokane, so is it even safe for North Carolina fans to show their faces right now? "What, sort of, is similar to the jar in this stanza?" Dr. Beth Cooley asked her Gonzaga University english class.

Inside Dr. Cooley's classroom the Gonzaga pride nearly overshadowed her poetry lesson. Especially when Dr. Cooley explained to her class why a camera crew would be joining their lecture. "They're doing a story on UNC alums here at Gonzaga, that would be me," said Dr. Cooley.

Just hours before the Zags faced off against North Carolina in the Sweet 16, Dr. Cooley was the one answering questions. "I'm probably pulling for the Zags, that was the right answer, right?" she said. Dr. Cooley spent 12 years at the University of North Carolina during the heyday of Tar Heel basketball, watching Sam Perkins, James Worthy - and, a young man named Michael Jordan.

She ended up at Gonzaga 12 years ago and she's not the lone tarheel at the Jesuit University. "I'm certainly not trying to keep it a secret," said Dr. Cooley. Dr. Marc Manganaro is the Dean of Gonzaga's English Department and another Carolina grad.

But Dr. Manganaro made it very clear who he was rooting for on Friday night. . "I'm a real Zag fan and I want to make that really clear... on camera," said Dr. Manganaro.

Marc, Beth and two other Gonzaga University english professors were in school together to watch Jordan and the Tar Heels in the early 1980's. Now, they're all switching sides to root for the zags. "If you put UNC against any team, especially Duke, I'm a Tarheel. But, definitely a Gonzaga fan," said Dr. Patricia Terry, another Carolina grad turned Zag.

Maybe it's because they're all here now, maybe it's because Gonzaga signs their paychecks. "I think I'm going to decide that after that game," said Dr. Cooley. Or maybe it's because no matter who wins, these transplanted Tar Heels have reason to celebrate.

Santo Domingo.- National Council Border (CNF) president Radhamés Batista Tuesday said the immigration authorities may file charges agaisnt the priest Regino Martinez, for the smuggling of alien into a church at Dajabón (northwest).

He said Martinez’s attitude is “incoherent” because he denounces an alleged conspiracy by the border’s civilian and military authorities of trafficking with aliens, while committing a criminal action in broad daylight.

The CNF president said Martinez can’t act as a priest to violate Dominican immigration laws. "We believe no one is above the law and though there’re no rules to implement the Immigration Act, in cases such as those in Dajabón, no one can argue that they’re working on this side and are entitled to remain in the country illegally, because they went to visit their family on the other side."

SANTO DOMINGO. - “Until there is a Migration Law or regulation by consensus, adapted to our Constitution, while there isn’t institutionality the problem of the immigrants is never going to be solved,” said the priest Regino Martinez, director of the Jesuit Refugee and Immigrants Service.

The prelate, in reference to the current increase in undocumented Haitians who beg in the country’s streets, said “what anarchy and the lack of laws generate is disorder, violence and repression.”

He said it’s a national problem which must be faced by the State. “It’s not a question of whether Immigration director Carlos Amarante has the sufficient human, economic or technical resources to control the situation; the issue of the children begging can’t be individualized.”

Martinez said the traffic of illegals shouldn’t be treated “in a gross, violent manner, nor with corrupt or repressive controls,” and denounced that in Palo Verde, Hatillo Palma and Villa Vásquez the immigrants are taken with or without ID cards and their rights are violated.

Amarante said that the routine sweeps of Haitian immigrants will continue, within his entity’s possibilities.

According to the same source, Martinez declared that Haitians gather around an area called La Gorra, in Dajabon, from where they are taken to other points within the Dominican Republic; also, that in one particular case, corrupt authorities at a border check-point resorted to detention only when the driver of a vehicle loaded with Haitians offered a final amount of 20k pesos as bribe, instead of the 50k the authorities demanded.

Haitian Workers Face Abuses in Dominican Republic, Says Priest

Feb 8, 2006

Despite the Dominican Republic's poverty, its relative economic and political stability attracts neighboring Haitians, who slip across the border looking for work, said Jesuit Fr Regino Martinez, who has lived for 31 years along the Dominican-Haitian frontier. He directs Border Solidarity, a Jesuit-run organization in the Dominican Republic working with Haitian immigrants.

The Haitians' illegal status makes them vulnerable to abuses, including death, said Fr Martinez, who buried 24 Haitians whose bodies were found January 11 along a road on the Dominican side of the border.

Dominican police said the dead were thrown from a van after they had suffocated in it. The van was transporting the Haitians to Santo Domingo after they slipped across the frontier with the help of professional smugglers, police said.

Fr Martinez said that although accords between the neighboring countries allow Haitians to work in the Dominican Republic, many Haitians are so poor they do not have the identity papers needed to get a Haitian passport or a Dominican visa. Yet the demand for Haitian manual labor in the sugar cane and tourism industries continues to be so great that Haitians illegally move to the Dominican Republic, he said.

A major problem caused by the Haitian influx is that the Dominican Republic is also a poor country and "it is hard for it to take care of all these people," the priest said.

Fr Martinez was forced to bury the Haitians in a mass grave after protests on the Haitian side of the border became riots, preventing him and several other Jesuits from returning the bodies to Haiti.

Fr Martinez estimated that there are several hundred thousand Haitians in the Dominican Republic illegally; he said one of Border Solidarity's main activities is to try to legalize the status of Haitians born in the Dominican Republic

Fr. Regino Martinez, S.J. mentioned in The History of HaitiBy Steeve Coupeau (here)

• Avery Cardinal Dulles, the closest of collaborators and friends, died December 12 at age ninety in the infirmary of the Jesuit residence at Fordham University. Avery Dulles was a master of the Catholic theological tradition by which he was mastered and which he joyfully served.

He combined erudition, intellectual intensity, and ecclesial fidelity in a lifelong devotion to the Church, joined to a wry sense of humor and disarming humility about his part in the grand scheme of things. Generations of Christian thinkers have been placed in his everlasting debt.

You can be sure that there will be much more about Avery Dulles in these pages. For the moment, we thank God for love’s fire that burned to the end, and we pray that the truth to which he bore tireless witness is now opened to him in the fullness of the Beatific Vision for which he longed with nothing less than everything. (February 2009)

• Just one more word on our friend Avery Dulles. I note the obituary written by Fr. Drew Christiansen, S.J., editor of America, which suggests that Dulles’ conservative turn in the 1970s had to do with his signing the 1975 Hartford Appeal for Theological Affirmation “at the request of his friend Richard John Neuhaus.”

This is, I am afraid, a grave disservice to Cardinal Dulles’ intellectual integrity in his determination to “think with the Church.” Others have also suggested that Dulles’ betrayal of liberal orthodoxy is attributable to his having fallen under the influence of the FIRST THINGS crowd. As a matter of fact, Dulles did not simply sign the Hartford Appeal. He was one of its initiators and architects, having spent several days hammering out the statement in cooperation with such luminaries as Peter Berger, George Forrell, Stanley Hauerwas, Thomas Hopko, George Lindbeck, Ralph McInerny, Richard J. Mouw, Carl Peter, Alexander Schmemann, Gerard Sloyan, George Tavard, and Robert Louis Wilken.

Far from having signed the statement as a personal favor, in the book on Hartford, Against the World for the World, Dulles wrote a major essay in its support, “Unmasking Secret Infidelities: Hartford and the Future of Ecumenism.” As a matter of further fact, Dulles had about the same time, in his capacity as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, made a memorable address on why many, if not most, academic Catholic theologians were no longer doing Catholic theology as he understood that task. These were themes he constructively developed in his numerous essays in FIRST THINGS over the last almost twenty years. The truth is that many Catholic theologians are deeply embarrassed that their most distinguished and honored colleague was unabashedly a conservative in that he was a formidable and persuasive defender of the faith as it is taught by the Church. Those who, like then Cardinal Ratzinger, admired Avery Dulles and supported his creation as a cardinal understood that his life’s work was marked at every step of the way by courage, candor, and care.

As Benedict XVI wrote on the news of his death: “I join you in commending the late cardinal’s noble soul to God, the Father of Mercies, with immense gratitude for the deep learning, serene judgment, and unfailing love of the Lord and his Church, which marked his entire priestly ministry and his long years of teaching and theological research. At the same time I pray that his convincing personal testimony to the harmony of faith and reason will continue to bear fruit for the conversion of minds and hearts and the progress of the gospel for many years to come.”

“In keeping with Catholic tradition and teachings, voluntary termination of pregnancy will not be performed at St. Mary's Hospital and referrals for abortion will not be given to a student by USF Student Health Clinic staff. In addition, contraceptives services, in all forms, will not be provided by the USF Student Health Clinic."

“The Cardinal Newman Society applauds the University of San Francisco for altering its policy,” said Patrick J. Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society.

“It is important to note, however, the imperative for USF to be consistent and now remove the abortion coverage currently available to employees.”

The University of San Francisco currently makes available a Blue Cross health insurance plan to employees which does not include abortion coverage. Another plan, offered to adjunct faculty by USF through Kaiser, includes coverage for abortion.

Voice of the Faithful invites you to a unique national conference on Long Island this fall!

Two contemporary prophets—Sr. Joan Chittister and Fr. Tom Reese—will lead us in “Making Our Voices Heard.” Join in lively discussions with our esteemed speakers as we come together to reflect on the state of our church and how we can be part of the changes that will renew our faith.

Pray together as one voice, learn about VOTF’s current strategic plan, participate in stimulating conversations, catch up with old friends and make some new ones as we convene some of the most active and committed Catholics in our area to “make our voices heard.”

We will have registration details soon, but for now PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

OCTOBER 30-31 2009Huntington Hilton, Melville, Long IslandHosted by Long Island –Voice of the Faithful

Nicaragua came to my mind almost immediately when I first read about a possible (Suspended from the priesthood)Fr. Ed Panlilio candidacy. The late 1960s and the entire 1970s were a time of political ferment for the Catholic Church in Latin America and the Philippines because of harsh dictatorships.

It was during these difficult times that liberation theology gained a strong following among both the religious and lay Catholics (as well as some Protestants). Liberation theology borrowed from Marxism, pointing out the structural roots of poverty, from US imperialism to the greed and corruption of local landlords and capitalists.

Liberation theology talked about a “preferential option” for the poor. Many religious and lay people went to serve urban and rural poor communities, getting involved in community organizing and militant politics. The film “Sister Stella L.,” whose 25th anniversary is being celebrated this year, was based on the lives of Catholic sisters in the Philippines who worked in urban poor communities, joining pickets and rallies and investigating human rights abuses, all amid a repressive martial law regime.

Liberation theology was also strong in Nicaragua, which was ruled by the Somoza family for several decades. As in the Philippines, Catholic religious were among those who opposed the dictatorship. This included a Maryknoll priest, Fr. Miguel D’Escoto, who headed the US-based Nicaraguan solidarity movement.

The Sandinistas overthrew Somoza in 1979 and the new government appointed Father Miguel foreign minister. He resisted his superiors’ orders for him to give up his government position and stayed on as foreign minister until 1990, when the Sandinistas lost power in elections. In 2007, when the Sandinistas came back into power, he was appointed as government adviser by President Daniel Ortega.

Father Miguel was not the type to mince words, calling Ronald Reagan a “butcher” and George W. Bush a “liar.” Last year, he became president of the UN General Assembly, and has taken a more diplomatic approach in his declarations.

Since the Renaissance there have been legions of great, dedicated Jesuits. Many are well known. It is remarkable, however, how the Generals, the successors to St. Ignatius, are today little known. This book is a modest attempt to remedy that oversight by presenting a portrait of each of the thirty three Generals along with a brief biography.

The Jesuit Mission & Fasnakyle Alexander MacRae S.J (who founded the church at Dornie) took over the (excellent, excellent link)Jesuit Strathglass mission when Father Munro was captured. By 1714 there were over a hundred Catholic families and Mass was openly celebrated. By 1720 Father MacRae had made 395 further converts in Strathglass alone. He was joined by a famous triad of Jesuits -John Farquharson and his brother, and Alex Cameron. Father John built the priest’s house and chapel at Fasnakyle. Mass houses were also built at Crochail and Strathfarrer.

Father John, or Maghistair Ian as he was known locally, dressed in kilt and tartan hose, learnt Gaelic and was the first person to make a collection of Gaelic poetry, which unfortunately did not survive.

There is a a short story of his altercation with the devil asan ‘old carle, with a noise like a thousand thunders, and spitting fire, flame and smoke’ who dived into the river at Cannich bridge. After the ‘45 and the defeat at Culloden, the penal laws were reinforced.

Father John was captured at Balnain, and transported to Hanover, but the captain of the convict ship smuggled him back to Scotland.

He returned to Cannich and the three priests hid up Glen Cannich in a temporary hide at the Brae of Craskie. It was at this time that he is supposed to have baptized the locals in the Clach-a-bastaidh, now at Marydale.

The Farquharson brothers gave themselves up when the redcoat captain threatened them with burning every Catholic home in Strathglass: Alex Cameron was captured later. They were sent to a prison ship where Alex Cameron died. After 15 months the brothers were released, Fr. John later returning as chaplain to his nephew at Balmoral.

Chisholms & the Strathglass ‘nursery of priests’ In 1773, the same year that the Jesuits were temporarily suppressed the emigration from Strathglass to Nova Scotia took place, and from 1803-31 the Highland clearances in Strathglass and Glen Affric. It was at this time that the ‘fair brothers,’ John and Aeneas Chisholm were priests in Strathglass, and the ‘fair lady’ Chisholm tried desperately to prevent the clearances in the lets she controlled. John was priest in Strathglass for 17 years before being made Bishop of the Highland District in 1791: Aeneas succeeded him as Bishop in 1814. Father Aeneas built a small chapel at Inchullie, for lower Strathglass, which was replaced with a slated chapel at Aigas in 1801: he rebuilt the mission chapel at Fasnakyle on a grander scale. The old cross from Fasnakyle chapel, dated 1780, Leo XIII, was saved and now tops St. Ignatius well at Guisachan.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Remembering Father Yeh The 97-year-old Hungarian Catholic priest passed away last week, but memories of his dedication and love for the poor and the marginalized live on in the hearts of many

By Jenny W. Hsu

With her stubby fingers tapping rapidly on an old, yellowing photograph, Jean Hsu smiled and occasionally let out a hearty laugh as she looked at the picture of her with a white-bearded Catholic priest sitting under a tree at school.

“She is trying to tell you that Father Yeh is her friend, a very good friend who loved her very much,” said Jean's mom, who looked at the photograph with a trace of melancholy as she rubbed the back of her daughter, who suffers from severe retardation.

The scene in that picture can never be repeated again because Father Yeh, or Istvan Jaschko, passed away quietly in his sleep last Tuesday.

Jaschko, 97, was a Hungarian Catholic priest who devoted 53 years of his life in serving the poor and the marginalized in Taiwan. Through his ministry, Jaschko, often dubbed the Albert Schweitzer of Taiwan, established several clinics, hospitals and schools for the handicapped throughout the country.

True to his Chinese name, Yeh You-ken, literally “leaf growing from the root,” was a much respected local hero who took Taiwan to his heart the minute he set foot on the island in 1955.

Not only did he dedicate more than five decades of his life to Taiwan, his body — per his request — was donated to the Fu Jen Catholic University for medical research.

Born to a religious family of nine children in 1911 in a small town called Kosice in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Jaschko joined the Catholic Society of Jesus at the age of 26 and began his lifelong mission to spread the love of God.

In 1936, the young Jaschko was sent to China with the largest group of Hungarian missionaries — six Jesuits and five sisters from Kalocsa. He studied Chinese for two years before he was ordained a priest in Shanghai in 1941.

For three years, he worked as a teacher of Latin and theology at the seminary in Daming. One of his students was Paul Shan, who became the first archbishop from Taiwan to be ordained a cardinal in 1988.

Because of the raging war between China and Japan, Jaschko witnessed the flood of refugees and victims dying because of lack of medical care in war-torn China.

Finally, in 1949, with the help of the Red Cross, Jaschko established the first hospital in Hebei Province with 100 hospital beds. Given the severe lack of qualified medical workers, he hired six young men to help him with his work. All six later became licensed doctors in China.

The Chinese Communist regime tried to drive away all foreign missionaries from the land. Although most of his friends and colleagues left, Jaschko was determined to stay on to look after his flock and the hospital.

Jaschko eventually fell into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, when his deputy hospital chief accused him of beating a Chinese child. The allegation earned him three years of hard labor in jail. The deputy chief later confessed that he had fabricated the story against Jaschko because his father had been arrested by the CCP.

“I did not feel sad,” Jaschko said in describing his imprisonment, “because God lives in my heart.” Jaschko was expelled by the CCP in 1955 — the same year he came to Taiwan via Hong Kong.

Continuing with his passion for medicine and serving the underprivileged, Jaschko set up the Catholic Hospital for the Poor in the farming county of Chiayi, where he hired a Taiwanese girl who had barely finished elementary school to act as his translator. For half a century, the little girl, Wu Fu-mei, kept close contact with the father.

Jaschko was inspired to start a school for disabled children when he saw many of them left in poor care as their parents worked in the fields. He set up his first classroom in a dilapidated Buddhist temple, Wu recalled.

In 1974, Jaschko was transferred to Hsinchu County, where he wasted no time in helping disabled children. One year later, the St Joseph Special Education Center had its grand opening. The center currently houses more than 160 children and is often credited as the birthplace of special education in Taiwan.

In 1983, at the age of 72, the silver-haired priest who then walked with the aid of a cane, decided to open Hua Kuang Cognitive Development Center. Established in the town of Guanhsi in Hsinchu, Hua Kuang, which is now headed by Wu, is what Jean and more than 200 residents call their home away from home.

One staffer, Peng Hsiu-yue, said the priest was a serious man, but whenever he was around children, he was all smiles.

“He didn't even mind when the students played with his beard,” Peng said.

“He saw himself as Taiwanese a long time ago,” Wu said, recalling that Jaschko had his alien permanent resident certificate, which he received in 2002, proudly hung up on his humble bedroom wall.

“The minute he found out that he was staying at a more expensive hospital room, he asked to be discharged because he wanted to be back at the center to be with his children, the residents,”

said Jean's father, Hsu Yu-yuan, who is also the president of the Parent Teacher Association, describing Jaschko as a “truly great man.”

On the morning of his passing, more than 250 people came to pay their final tribute. His body was immediately brought to the medical center in Taipei at noon.

“He has done an excellent job and his ministry has touched the lives of many people and brought the love of God to many people. We mourn for his passing and pray that God will reward him for what he has done,” said Monsignor Paul Fitzgerald, charge d'affaires of the Holy See to Taiwan.

A formal memorial service for Jaschko will be held next Tuesday at the chapel of the Hua Kuang center in honor of his life and legacy.

About Me

I am not a Jesuit, nor am I a cleric. I spent about 5 years under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit, 3 of those years in a weekly directed retreat in everyday life. The profound impact that the Society and the Excercises had upon my life, resulted in me, trying to deal with that impact in some way by sharing my view of Jesus Christ with others. My intention is to pull together Jesuitical and Catholic subjects that interest me. I was born on the feast day of St. Paul Miki, S.J.. I am the father of three small children and an infant, I am married to a great wife.